Thriving metropolis: Workers on a suspended platform prepare to clean the Shanghai World Financial Center on Jan. 30. The number of urban dwellers will nearly double over the next 30 to 40 years, a U.N. agency forecast Monday. | BLOOMBERG

City dwellers to double by ’50: U.N.

Poorer, developing nations expected to see 96% of growth

UNITED NATIONS – The number of city dwellers is at an all-time high of about 3.5 billion and will nearly double in the next 30 to 40 years, with almost all the growth in developing countries, the head of the U.N. agency focusing on cities said Monday.

Joan Clos said even though the rate of population growth is decreasing, the U.N. projects that in the next 30 years the global population will increase from 7 billion to 9 billion — and the urban population will grow between 2.5 billion and 3 billion people.

“In all human history we have reached 3.5 billion of urban settlers and in the next 30 years we are going to have 3 billion more,” he said. “Imagine the changing rate — what we have done in all human history, we nearly will do in the next 30 to 40 years of history.”

With 96 percent of the growth of cities expected in poorer developing countries, he said, there are going to be huge demands on land, resources and services for urban residents.

Clos, a former mayor of Barcelona who is now executive director of the U.N. Human Settlements Program, which is known as U.N.-Habitat, spoke at a news conference promoting the agency’s upcoming World Urban Forum from April 5-11 in Medellin, Colombia, which will focus on growing inequalities in urbanization worldwide.

He said 10,000 participants are expected including ministers, mayors, academics and representatives from business, NGOs and local authorities.

Currently, Clos said, the world is experiencing “the highest rate of urbanization in human history,” and national and local governments don’t have the capacity to address key issues including organization, governance, finance and the provision of services.

In recent decades, he said, inequalities in urban areas have led to protests and unrest as cities have faced difficulties integrating a big influx of migrants.

“This is why we are very worried, because the number of people living in slums is increasing,” Clos said.

U.N.-Habitat said it estimates that between 2000 and 2010 a total of 227 million people in the developing world experienced improvements in their living conditions, with China and India alone accounting for 166 million, or 55.5 percent of the global effort. This met a U.N. anti-poverty goal before the 2015 target date, Clos said.

At the same time, however, U.N.-Habitat said the world’s slum population rose from 650 million in 1990 to 767 million in 2000, and to 828 million in 2010 and an estimated 863 million in 2012.